mostly david ephgrave

And so Mostly Comedy has closed. Our closure statement (26.04.2022). Arriving at this decision was difficult. It went against my natural-born instinct to keep things going at all costs. My brain has an annoying habit of defining what I do on the times when it isn't plain sailing at the exclusion of any evidence to the contrary, and this was no exception. But the fact is the circumstances we found ourselves in thanks to the pandemic were unprecedented and extremely hard to fight, particularly when you have so little money to start with and are constantly calling in favours from friends to make the shows run smoothly on the day. Pre-show audience at a Hitchin Town Hall Mostly Comedy (June 2019) The sad thing is I had visions of it carrying on long into the future, though if I could find a way to outsource some of the admin, that would've helped. I liked the idea of reaching our twentieth anniversary - we were already close to our fourteenth - as, for some reason, the idea that it...

The plum tree my wife bought me for my fortieth has started showing tiny shoots and leaves, which is a handy metaphor for a new beginning as far as these things go. It's surprising what such a tiny aspect of the natural world can do for your mood. Sitting in the garden now in the sun has given me a burst of energy I didn't have before. It's like a balm for the mind. Until I moved out of Hitchin, I've never had a garden, aside from a communal one at my first flat, which we never used due to some deep-seated need to hide from our neighbours. It's the same reflex that makes you pretend you've not seen someone you know on the street, only more intense, as you've less reason to chat to the guy who banged on the ceiling the night before because you were listening to Bob Dylan too loudly. Oh, those carefree student days (when I swear no-one smoked wacky baccy). (For an insight into our antics, my flatmate Mark was once an hour late for his girlfriend because we wer...

I'm delighted to say that, after just under two years of trying, I'm the proud owner of a little Covid in the country. Scan the QR code for a short clip of me inserting a swab in a cavity of my choice. Having those two red lines pop up so quickly was the scratchcard win I'd always dreamed of, and a result that the Government's PCR test-analysing scientists confirmed for me today. It's either that or I'm pregnant. You do wee on the little gubbins, don't you? That's why they call it lateral flow. The good news is I'm currently not feeling too bad, aside from a sore throat and general tiredness, which is pretty much my natural state. And obviously, my first thought was to show a wanton disregard for social distancing by driving to the nearest castle (that's apparently in Walkern, and no doubt haunted by a ghost called Christopher, who dances around the grounds to the club-singing bark of present-day Elton John). And I licked anyone who got in my way...

From today, after twenty-three years there, I officially no longer live in Hitchin. Elwood looks down at Hitchin: the master of all he surveys (01.02.19) What's changed is I've sold the flat my dad helped me buy seventeen years ago, with the funds going toward his childhood home. Still, leaving Hitchin is a big thing to process. The beautiful little market town has become hardwired as my home; a base to come back to when I was touring; a location to run a comedy club; a place to carve my own identity (with the emphasis on the "tit" bit). That's not to say I'm not pleased to be moving to the village where my dad grew up. And it's not a completely new experience as it was our base for much of the pandemic while we waited for the flat to go. But the moment the sale went through was significant; to no longer have a base in the town I've lived since I was a nineteen-year-old drama student was a big moment. I'll always love it. And if asked at gunpoint w...

Part of the reason I've been silent for a while is my attention is so divided. For nearly two years, I've been trying to push through the sale of my flat as it limped along for a variety of reasons, not least the pandemic's impact. Finally, we're potentially a few days from completion, which is hugely significant as it will draw to a close a stressful process that should also help create some closure from the issues it brought up from my past. And both points are sorely needed. Meanwhile, a different type of closure threatens Mostly Comedy. Trying to keep enough money in the kitty to cover our costs as multiple shows are cancelled or postponed for all manner of reasons has proved difficult; if it weren't for a generous donation via JustGiving last month, we would have folded. Frustratingly, sales were picking up for next week's gig when we had to postpone it to May due to a sickness in the line-up (which sounds like the proclamation of an apocalyptic preacher). ...

There's a stretch of raised kerb on a bend near where I live that makes me think of my nan (because nothing makes me reminisce about dead relatives more than roadside brickwork). Seeing it ignites a childhood memory of her watching me balance on it like a tightrope walker whenever we went to the post office. It wasn't exactly the best way to traverse a busy road, though health and safety was a different beast in the 1980s. But I know she kept an eye on me. She was the prototypical nan whose warm presence I can still feel even though she died in 1987. And I have a surprising amount of memories involving her when you consider they all happened before I was six. She would babysit me when my parents went to White Hart Lane to watch Spurs, which often involved a trip to the local shop. We took that short walk frequently.  We'd sometimes visit the nearby playground on the way back, where there was a climbing frame shaped like a spider that's still in action to this day. And w...

Tonight, I watched Paul McCartney & Paul Muldoon discuss their new book 'The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present' with journalist Samira Ahmed at Royal Festival Hall. A picture from tonight’s show, courtesy of Macca’s Instagram.  While I've visited the iconic venue several times in the interim, the last show I saw there was Brian Wilson's live premiere of the lost Beach Boys album 'Smile' in 2004. Something about 1960s bassists clearly gets me out of the house. Tonight's show was very different but no less entertaining. Macca was engaging and happy to let the conversation flow where it went, which included the odd diversion from his stock responses. The chat was more Beatle-heavy than I'd have liked, but that's just me. And being a former member of the world's biggest band does tend to overshadow things. Tonight was the first show I've attended since the pandemic hit, besides September's Mostly Comedy obviously. I wore my mask on public trans...